Each year, the History of Art & Architecture Undergraduate Program Director, Professor Margaret Vickery, works with art history undergraduates to curate an exhibition in the Greenbaum Gallery space on UMass Amherst campus. Last year, the exhibition focused on Emeritus Professor Walter Denny’s collection of carpets in “Treasured Knowledge: Walter Denny and the Woven World of Carpets.” This exhibit accompanied a symposium in honor of Professor Denny.
This year’s Greenbaum Gallery exhibition, “Music of the Valley,” was curated by undergraduates Arlo Kellie, Nic Restrepo (class of 24), Owen Embury (class of 23), Camille Gomez, and Priscilla Mota. The students researched musicians in the Pioneer Valley and looked at album covers for their unique positioning as both art and commercial product.
Below is an excerpt from Owen Embury’s introduction to the exhibition pamphlet. The full pamphlet is available for viewing here, and more photographs of the exhibition can be viewed here.
Excerpt from “The Meaning in a Cover” by Owen Embury (BA ’23)
Album covers are intended to instantaneously transmit information on the contents of the album, but also how a listener may relate with a work in respect to class, age, race, gender, sexuality, nationality, and culture. As a result, the statements made by album covers are often considered equally alongside the contents of an album when interpreting its message and legacy. While this has sometimes resulted in insignificant details taking on lives of their own, it has frequently cemented the most popular albums in recorded history as both sonic and visual icons. Take for instance Nirvana's Nevermind or Prince's Purple Rain. Album covers occupy an entirely unique space within Art History because they exist at the intersection of high academic concepts and the strategies of profit driven consumer advertising. While some albums undoubtedly utilize the same strategies used to sell fertilizer and shampoo, constructing an album's visual identity requires in each attempt a level of care, individuality, and creative consciousness entirely alien to traditional advertising, but it remains on the outside of high art discussions due to its unavoidable, primary function: to sell a product.
The Pioneer Valley has been home to an unusual number of notable musicians when considering its proximity to any major cities. Initial explanations of this phenomenon may point first towards the Pioneer Valley's quirky regional character, but in reality, it is likely what is behind the Valley's eccentricities to begin with. The Five Colleges are all institutions that have invested significantly in arts education, and each relies on a revolving door of motivated, educated young people. Over the years this has resulted in a large number of young artists passing through that far exceeds the area's population. This not only creates a concentrated body of artists, but also a substantial, receptive local audience to support them. University radio stations, such as Smith College's WOZQ, Mount Holyoke College's WMHC, Amherst College's WAMH, and UMass' WMUA, have historically been tools for amplifying the politics, opinions, and musical interests of the student body to reach the ears of the surrounding community. In the case of bands with deep local roots, such as Dinosaur Jr., exposure to alternative music through these radio stations was essential in revealing music's potential for individual expression. What has been a specific draw to UMass for musicians has been its prestigious academic programs and investment in musical faculty. Sadie Dupuis (Speedy Ortiz) and David Berman (Silver Jews and Purple Mountains) [whose] musical work is featured within this exhibition enrolled in the university's MFA poetry program, then directed by the late Pulitzer Prize winning poet, James Tate. At one time, the university had assembled a star studded musical faculty of jazz musicians assembled by former Chancellor Randolph Bromery, that included the likes of drummer Max Roach and saxophonists Archie Shepp and Fred Tillis.
View more photos from the exhibition through our Flickr below.
